


That Peculiar Silence

by Kirsten



Category: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-31
Updated: 2009-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-13 15:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirsten/pseuds/Kirsten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some day Ben Wade will take a trip back to Bisbee, Arizona.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Peculiar Silence

**Author's Note:**

> For the Porn Battle.

Some day Ben Wade will take a trip back to Bisbee, Arizona. He'll go stand by the bank and he'll think about robbing it, until he remembers there's no Charlie Prince around to watch his back. Even Ben Wade can't walk into a bank on Main Street and expect to walk out again, free and easy, pockets stiff with cash and whistling a tune jaunty enough to match the angle of his hat. Ben's damned good at what he does, but there are times a man needs a crew.

Back to Bisbee, Arizona. Maybe instead of the bank he'd swing by the bar, pick up a whiskey and a girl to go with it. He'd take her by the hand and lead her up those stairs, and he'd have his way with her up against the door, then put her on her back and then her belly and make a real mess of those cheap blankets on the bed. He'd kiss her all over, all night long, and the only thing he'd think about was all the ways that first trip to Bisbee didn't take him back to Yuma.

Maybe he'd finish up with the girl and go stand in the bar and line up his coin on the counter. He'd look along, left and right, and he wouldn't see Dan Evans, the only man he ever met with guts and sense enough not to try and pull a gun on Ben Wade.

And maybe then he'd take the road out of Bisbee and head on into Arizona, find a spot up high and watch the Pinkertons make their eighteen-dollars-a-day way across the desert. There'd be no cattle in the hills, no wilful boys on horseback. There'd be no Dan with his eyes steady enough to back up that solid grip on his weapon, eyes that said he'd use it, if he had to, if he thought it would help get his boys and his beasts back home. And Ben wouldn't think about how far a man could go, how wide he might roam or how high he might soar, with Dan Evans at his side.

He'd think about stopping those Pinkertons, riding down all reckless like with guns a-blazing, but even Ben Wade wouldn't come back from that. In his mind's eye he'd watch himself fall from the saddle, his hands numb and losing their grip while his blood oozed from the hole in his chest. He'd listen to his horse keen like its own wound was casting all that red on the ground, and he'd stare at the sun and think fading thoughts about that space in his head where a conscience should sit, as big and as empty as the sky.

What he'd do instead, he'd ride out to the Evans ranch and watch William working his way through life, taking care of his mama and his little brother. Only half of that burned out barn would be re-built, and Ben would imagine William's hands, roughened and blistered and shot through with splinters, a boy's hands made too old, too fast, no Dan around to take the brunt of it, no Dan to lift those weights and take those blows that William couldn't.

Then Alice would stand in the door and call William in for dinner. There'd be grease on her apron that she'd wiped from her fingers, and she'd smell like that girl in the bar never could. They'd sit down at the table and she'd say grace for her family, and she'd eat with a smile on her face and maybe she'd think about her boys dying a little more every day, about Dan and his stubborn streak. Maybe she'd think about Ben Wade, and how he kept breaking her family piece by piece.

Then Ben Wade would ride a little farther out, because he always did know a place he wasn't welcome. He'd ride, and he'd think about how it takes a man like Ben Wade to really know a man like Dan Evans.

He'd bed down out in the wilds, in that peculiar silence, arms folded over his chest and hat perched low over his eyes, no noise but the fire and the animals, his own heart, his own breath. He might look up at the stars, if he were feeling whimsical, but it's just as likely he wouldn't. How a man passes a night like that is his own business.

He'd dream about Dan's rough hands on his dick and his on Dan's, and there'd be nothing rough about Dan there. Dan's eyes would still be steady and backing up that grip, and there'd be scars on Dan's body weren't put there by war, gouges cut by pissed off bulls and falling beams in a burning barn. Dan Evans, Ben Wade's working man, so beat down he'd forgotten all the passion he kept within himself.

In the morning Ben'd wake up sticky with all the dreams of things he'd never have. Then he'd pack up and ride away, and he'd never go back to Bisbee.


End file.
